Hang on a second Robo, isn’t a presentation without pictures just a speech?

Well yes, it should be, but not in this case.

In this case we have Mike Rowe (from the Discovery Channel’s Dirty Jobs) giving a highly evocative and visceral [you’ll see what I mean in a moment] presentation about shooting an episode of the programme on a sheep farm. No video, no pictures, just Mike in a black shirt against a black background – an absolute paucity of visual appeal.

But he talks. And boy, can this man talk! “Let the words be the pictures.” His thoughts on the world of work and our attitude to the people around us who do the invisible, thankless work are just superb. In Mike’s world, imitation and repetition are every bit as important as innovation and design genius – the value of skilled, manual labour has been eroded to an unhealthy extent.

I always enjoy the moment when I have brought a client to a self-sufficient level in their application of narrative and their use of the slideware and we arrive back at first principles. Words, voice, emphasis, delivery. The music of the language. The emotional impact of one word versus another. The power of a pause …

I have added Mike’s talk to my examples folder for this topic, because he’s an old-school orator of the highest order.

Enjoy:

And let us not forget that it was not electricians, carpenters or farmers who brought the financial markets to their knees – so who really does the ‘dirty’ work on our little blue planet?